The chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries market numerous liquid products which are packaged in various small bottles equipped with means for delivering the liquid product to the outside in a regulated way, in a single shot or in several shots spaced over time.
A particularly commonplace example of such various small bottles is that of bottles containing ophthalmic solutions. These bottles are equipped with dispensing adaptors in which a capillary duct constitutes a nozzle delivering the liquid one drop at a time. The expulsion of each drop is encouraged under the effect of gravity, either when the bottle is placed head down, or by the effect of a raised pressure exerted by hand by compressing the walls of the liquid reservoir. Patent application EP 0 436 264 describes an adaptor of this type, in an application to a vaccine. Therein it is explained how the end diameter of the capillary duct is determined to ensure that a drop of the desired volume is formed.
The present invention is aimed at designing an applicator device that is able to regulate a diffusion of liquid far more slowly than is achieved in dropping dispensers. The art illustrated in French patent application published under the number 2 720 608 cannot, however, be held up against the present invention. In that prior application, the device described is a portable device for diffusing scent which comprises, at the end of a capillary neck, a porous silica pellet the purpose of which is to allow the scent to escape to the open air not in the liquid state, but in the vapor state.
By contrast, the applicator device of the invention is designed to allow the liquid product, such as scent, to be distributed selectively when the applicator device is in contact with an appropriate wetable surface, through the effect of capillary migration of the product in the liquid state.